Tag Archives: cow

I already briefly gave some attention on this subject in one of my Vegan Advice posts and last February against the #februdairy campaign. But as there is still so much ignorance when it comes to dairy I decided to write a whole, more detailed, article about only dairy. There is so much information available nowadays, but still there are people who truly don’t know the truth about the dairy industry. I really hope to also reach those people.

I want to tell you about the 3 most important things when it comes to dairy: Morality, Health and Environment. For me personally, the moral side is most important. Though you might find the health facts really interesting or you care more about the environment. It doesn’t really matter, because I think all 3 of them are very important. If you don’t believe me (and you shouldn’t, because there is so much false information on the internet), please do your own research. Let this article be a stepping stone to more knowledge about what it is really like. I always encourage people to think for themselves and to do their own research. Don’t instantly believe what you hear and what you read. You are the only one who can make a decision for yourself. Believing the dairy industry by what they say about needing milk for strong bones etc. is the whole problem to begin with. These are lies to make you buy dairy, so they can earn money, your money! So please think for yourself and decide if you still want to support the dairy industry after knowing this all.

THE MORAL SIDE
Let’s start from the whole beginning: Why do cows give milk? For the same reason humans give milk. To feed their baby. If a woman gives birth to her baby she starts producing milk to make her baby grow. This is the same for mammal animals, so also for cows. This is why the farmer artificially inseminate the cows ever year to make her pregnant. So every year the cow gives birth to a baby. In order for us to get the milk, the calf can’t stay with his/her mother, because it would drink the milk. The milk the farmers earn money with, so that means that as much milk as possible needs to be sold. This is why the farmer takes the baby calf away from his/her mum and feeds it a milk substitute. If you are a mother yourself, imagine your baby taken away from you within hours (up to 72 hours) after birth? Because this is the time a baby calf gets to spend with his/her mother. The mother licks her baby clean, she cares for her baby, feeds her baby, bonds with her baby and then her baby is taken away from her. They call for their baby and the baby cries out for his/her mother, but there is nothing they can do. The mother goes back into the herd and they all get milked twice a day by machines.

Then what happens to the baby calf? This depends. If the baby is a female she will end up living the same life as her mum. She is impregnated every year and every year a baby is taken away from her and the same will happen over and over again. When the cow is about 5-7 years old they will start to give less milk, what means they won’t be profitable enough. By this time they’ve given birth to 3-5 babies. Because they aren’t profitable anymore for milk they go to slaughter. Their tired bodies will be sold for meat. If the baby calf is a male there are 2 options: instant death or their bodies will be sold and called: veal. Male calves are not going to produce milk and so they are useless for the dairy industry. This is why a lot of male calves get killed right after birth. They’ve spent 283 days growing in their mother’s womb and as soon as they come out their life is over. Veal is meat from a baby cow. They can be as young as 4 weeks old and as ‘old’ as 26 weeks old. There are different kinds of veal for different kinds of meat textures/colours. Some get fed only milk to make their meat pinkish and some are weened quickly to make their meat look more red. There are even calves that are fed a diet very low in iron so they get anaemic, just so their meat is more pink.

By buying any kind of dairy (organic or non organic) you support this cruelty. For one bite of cheese or one sip of milk a cow died, a baby called out for his/her mother and a mother cried out for her baby.

HEALTHWISE
We need to drink milk every day for strong bones. Especially children! But.. do we? This is what we hear all our lives, over and over again. When you hear something over and over again from since you can remember, you start to believe it and most of us never question it. That is what you are taught, that is what everybody does, that is what your family has been doing and so that is what you know. Only it turns out milk isn’t as good for you as they say it is. It’s actually the opposite. Milk is not good for you at all and it’s actually bad for your bones. It makes your bones weaker instead of stronger. The reason they say it’s good for your bones is because your bones need calcium and there is a lot of calcium in milk. The problem is, this calcium can’t get absorbed by your body as well and even extracts existing calcium from your bones. Also, dairy cows don’t drink milk after about 9 weeks old and they don’t suffer from weak bones. Why is that? They get their calcium from plants! So can we. In fact, the calcium in plants can actually be absorbed by our bodies. You have probably heard about osteoporosis. If not.. this is a disease that weakens your bones. They get more fragile and break faster. A lot of people think they need to drink more milk to prevent this, whilst in fact you can develop osteoporosis by drinking milk. This means milk is doing the opposite from what they advertise. Osteoporosis isn’t the only disease you can get from drinking milk. Cancer, Diabetes and Alzheimer are all linked to dairy too.

Then there are hormones, antibiotics, blood and puss. For example, to make a baby calf grow into a big adult cow there are hormones in milk, just like there were hormones in your mother’s milk. All these hormones come into your body too. Dairy cows also get antibiotics, this is to prevent them from getting ill. A lot of dairy cows are kept inside all year around or only get to go outside for a few months a year. That makes it easy for diseases to spread. Antibiotics are the solution and even though most cows are not allowed to be milked for a short period of time after getting antibiotics, there is always some left behind and that all ends up in the milk they produce. Because of the milking machines and the massive amount of milk that is taken from the cows every day, their udders are often infected, what means that not only is there milk going into the milking machine, but also blood and puss. This isn’t an exception, but there is actually a legal amount of puss and blood cells in every carton of milk. Just gross if you ask me.

So why do doctors and health experts recommend dairy for strong bones and an overall healthy lifestyle? Because that is what they’re taught. Doctors that recommend dairy aren’t evil doctors, but they just don’t know any better, just like a lot of people. In their study doctors only get 1 hour of nutrition a week and often it’s very dated. You probably wonder why this is dated and why they aren’t taught the right information anyway?! Because, and this might be very shocking to you, this is how the government makes money. The medical industry is one of the largest there is and there is a lot of money going around. If people will live healthier lifestyles they won’t get ill as much, they won’t need as much medicine and so the medical industry won’t make as much money. Yes, this is how it works. I know part of you maybe doesn’t want to believe this, but do your research and also.. just think!

ENVIRONMENTWhy is milk bad for the environment? Because of alllll the dairy cows. There are over 264 million dairy cows in the world. That is a lot of animals and they’re not just any animal, they’re cows. Big and heavy animals that eat a lot, drink a lot and poop and urinate a lot. Only 1 dairy cow produces about 50 kg’s of poo and urine every day. That is 264.000.000 x 50 KG every day.. do the maths. All this produces a lot of CO2 and it all goes into the earth. It goes into the ground, into the water ad right into the oceans, polluting our world. The world where we and so many other animals live on. This is the world where our children are growing up, where their children will grow up.. think about the damage we are doing to these amazing animals, our own health and our world!

ALTERNATIVES (where do you get your protein/calcium?)
Lucky there are so many alternatives that are actually good for you. You can find protein/calcium in a lot of plants. A few examples: Broccoli, Brussels Sprouts, Carrots, Collards (!), Beans (esp: Soy beans, Black turtle beans, Navy beans, White beans), Oranges and Dried figs. There are also a lot of plant-based milks and often they are calcium-fortified, what means that they contain a lot of extra calcium. A few examples of plant-based milks: soy, rice, almond, oat, hazelnut, hemp. You can also find a lot of protein/calcium in tofu and tempeh.

I used to drink a lot of milk (it was my favourite and I would easily drink a liter a day) and I loved cheese, yogurt and anything that had something to do with dairy. I still like milk, cheese and yogurt, but now I choose for plant-based options. They’re delicious and they’re even more delicious now I know that there weren’t any calves taken from their mother or cows killed. I can fully enjoy it because I know that it’s good for me and the world.

If you can choose between doing harm or not doing harm? Why would you choose to do harm? Please consider a vegan lifestyle!

Did you know all this about dairy? Were you surprised and do you look at dairy in a different way now? Do you have any more questions? Please don’t hesitate to ask me! you can do this in the comments below or you can also send me a private message if you like. Thank you for reading and I really hope that you consider going dairy free, X.

After (another huge success of) Veganuary, the dairy industry came up with Februdairy. It’s giving me mixed feelings. First of all, it makes me laugh a little bit, because.. seriously? Second, it makes me happy.. because apparently the dairy industry is having problems and is trying to survive. Third, it makes me sad.. because there must be a lot of desperate farmers now veganism is going so well. Don’t get me wrong, because there is nothing I like more than animal exploitation to stop, but I also want people to have a job. I just hope that the dairy farmers are brave enough to choose a different profession before it’s too late. In the end I think it makes me happy the most, because if you look at #februdairy you can see how the vegan community is fighting back. It gives me a feeling of togetherness, we are all fighting for the ones without a voice. And it’s working! It looks like Februdairy turned into a vegan campaign showing everybody the truth around dairy. In just a few days the complete opposite is happening. It makes me feel proud, hopeful and strong! We have to stand up for the voiceless!

Why is dairy so scary?
Dairy is scary for a lot of reasons:
-A cow gives milk for the same reason a dog, a mouse, a lion and even humans give milk. It’s meant for her baby. Cows are not here in the world to provide milk for human consumption. We are not calves.
-We are the only species on earth that keeps consuming milk after we need it and also the only species that consumes milk from a different species.
-To get the milk, a cow get artificially inseminated every year. After the cow gives birth her baby is taken away from her within less than 72 hours. The calf is put in a crate by him/herself. A lot of male calves are killed straight after birth or sold for veal. Females will go through the same process as their mothers.
-A dairy cow goes to slaughter when she is around 5-6 years old (the average natural lifespan for a cow could be as long as 25 years), because around that time she will give less milk. At that time most of the cows are weakened a lot (some of them can’t even stand on their legs anymore, they’re called: downers) by the conditions they have lived in. She will be sold for meat. So every sip of milk is linked to the meat industry.-Due to infections, caused by the machines and always lactating, there is blood and pus in milk. It’s legal for milk to contain up to 400 million pus cells per litre. This means that one teaspoonful of milk can max. have two million pus cells.
-In milk there are hormones and growth factors. This is necessary for the calf to keep drinking from her/his mother and to grow fast into a 750-1000 kg adult cow.
-Cow’s milk is unnatural to drink, unless you’re a calf. Therefore it’s unhealthy for humans. There are studies that that, for example, countries with lowest rates of dairy consumption have the lowest rates of osteoporosis. There are also studies that say that dairy increases the body’s level of insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1). This is a known for promoting cancer. And this isn’t all, there are a lot more negative health related issues around dairy!
-Then there is the saturated animal fat, casein and lactose. This is linked to obesity, type 2 diabetes, heart disease and strokes, bloating/wind and cramps, allergies, ovarian cancer.
-Dairy is all about money. The government and the dairy industry do not care about your health. Do your own research!

What can you do to make a difference?
-Drink plant-based milk: oat, rice, soya, almond, cashew, macadamia.
-Only eat plant based yogurt, ice cream, cheese, creams or anything that otherwise may contain cow’s milk, like biscuits, crisps, cakes etc.. there is so much choice!
-Vote with your money. Every time you choose a plant-based alternative to cow’s milk, there is supply and demand. If supermarkets sell more plant-based milk and less cow’s milk, slowly but surely there will be less and less dairy cows.
-Speak up! Tell people about the dairy industry. Tell the truth and hopefully more and more people will make the connection.

Do you still drink cow’s milk or did you swap it for a plant-based alternative? What is your favourite (my one is oat milk)? Do you have something you’d like to share or do you have a question? Please let me know in the comments below or show me by using #PlanetManel on Instagram. Thank you! X

Let’s talk about veganism! Once in a while I like to do a ‘Vegan Advice’ post, where I’ll be giving answers to questions I get asked a lot. Every time I will answer 3 questions. You maybe read my first Vegan Advice already. That one answered the following questions: ‘Can I still eat something nice in a restaurant?‘, ‘How would my environment react?‘ and ‘Can I do it?’. This time I will answer 3 questions too: ‘Where do I get my protein from?’, ‘Can I eat the eggs from my own chickens?’ and ‘Do cows have to be milked?’. These are questions I get asked all the time. If you’re vegan too, I’m quite sure that you get these questions all the time as well. Especially question number 1..

Where do I get my protein from?
Lets start this 2nd Vegan Advice with a classic. I think this is the most common question you get as a vegan. That’s why, whenever I get asked, it always makes me laugh a little bit. There are still a lot of people out there who think that you need to eat chicken, eggs and greek yogurt to get a sufficient amount of protein. Luckily plants have a lot of protein too. Very good quality protein. For everybody who doesn’t know yet or for people who would like to have a reminder, there we go: Black beans, Lentils, Tofu, Chickpeas, Soy, Edamame beans, Peas, Tempeh, Hemp seeds, Pumpkin seeds, Chia Seeds, Spinach, Broccoli, Almonds, Peanut butter, Spirulina, Tahini, Nutritional yeast.. and I can go on and on, but these ones are some important ones, which are particularly high. What means if you eat lots of these things, there will be no problem with your protein intake. Always aim to eat a varied diet though, don’t only get your protein from peanut butter guys, haha!

Can I eat the eggs from my own chickens?
Of course you can, but it wouldn’t be a vegan thing to do. So what are you suppose to do with the eggs? I would (and many people do) feed them back to the chickens. Chickens in the wild tend to do this too, to get the lost nutrition back into their body. The chickens nowadays, especially the ones who are bred to lay eggs, lay a lot more eggs than a chicken normally would. It’s insane to think about breeding an animal in a way so ‘we’ can make a profit. Some chickens will always lay a lot of eggs for a long period of time, that’s simply how they were bred. Very sad if you think about it. Other chickens won’t lay any eggs after a while or only just a few a year. This last situation is normal. Imagine a chicken who has to lay 1 or several eggs a day? It would be very vulnerable for predators and a waste of nutrition. Eating eggs is just not a unnatural thing to do. It’s not ours to take. So eating the eggs of your own chickens would also be unnatural. Normally, chickens who were used to lay a lot of eggs, will lay fewer eggs after a while. Especially if there is no rooster around. I was always told that a chicken who lays a lot of eggs, is very happy and a chicken that didn’t lay eggs was unhappy. Now I’m thinking about it, it always was the other way around..

Do cows have to be milked?
If I get this question, I’m always a bit flabbergasted. I do admit that as a child I did believe this too, because this is what you’re told. I am surprised if an adult asks me this though. No offence, because if you never thought about it and you were always told that cows exist to give us milk, then you don’t know. But a cow is not a magic milking machine. In order to give milk, a cow has to, just like any other animal and just like us humans, give birth first. By drinking milk you’re not only supporting the fact that the baby is stolen from the mum 1-3 days after giving birth, but you’re also supporting that more cows come into this world every day. More cows will suffer, more milk will be produced, more cows will be killed and also the more cows there are, the worse it is for the environment. Cows and other livestock are responsible for more than half the CO2 in the world. Apart from that, milk is one of the worst thing you can drink if you want to live a healthy life. So a cow will not suffer if you don’t milk it. If you don’t milk a cow after giving birth, the calf will drink the milk and stay with his/her mum for at least 6 months. Slowly it will drink less milk and slowly the milk will ‘dry up’. Exactly the same as with humans.

Did you already know the answers to these questions or did you learn something? Are there any other questions you’re struggling with? I’d be more than happy to help! Please let me know by leaving a comment below or by sending me a private email. You can also contact me via Instagram by sending me a message, by tagging me or by using #PlanetManel. Thank you! X